Senator Rand Paul is comically defensive about the fact that people
are calling him a hypocrite because he's urging the Biden administration to
offer federal relief funding to his state of Kentucky.
And, to be sure, Kentucky absolutely should receive federal funding.
And disaster relief funds, following the awful tornado that ripped across the state
and other states, took out entire towns, it has been a complete and utter disaster.
And so it's the correct thing to do for the federal government to step in,
to provide the funding necessary to get the people of Kentucky
back on their own two feet, but he didn't always think that way.
And so in previous instances he was against offering financial relief
to states that had been completely devastated by natural disasters.
We'll get to those examples in just a second, but first, here's his
reaction to those of us who have accurately referred to him as a hypocrite.
>> There's been some criticism of you asking for aid requests for
the tornado damage in your state federal aid.
while some are pointing out that you opposed it in other instances,
including Hurricane Sandy, how are you responding to that criticism ?.
>> I think it's sad we haven't even buried our dead yet.
And networks like CNN were frankly, they're just fundamentally dishonest,
people are saying things that are untrue.
When I was first elected in 2010, within months, I was advocating for
disaster relief for Kentucky, I've never had a problem with the program.
I've never really opposed disaster relief for any other part of the country.
But I have said when it goes over budget,
when we spend everything that's within our budget, that it should be paid for
by taking money from places in the budget that are less essential.
I think that's a very reasonable, fiscally conservative.
But, you know, you watch CNN and
you have people who basically all they care about is attack, attack, attack.
You know, like I say, we're still trying to bury our dead.
And CNN's busy fighting some kind of left wing partisan war founded on dishonesty.
>> No, this this isn't about CNN, Like I get it.
CNN's got its problems, Okay, but CNN can't be the scapegoat for
all of the bad behavior that we see among members of Congress,
whether it be Democrats or Republicans.
In this case,
we're talking about a hypocrite who happens to be a GOP lawmaker,
Republican senator who just lied, by the way in that interview on Fox News.
And was there any follow up question,
was there any fact checking happening in real time, of course not.
What did he lie about?
Well, it could be the fact that he has voted against providing disaster relief
funds to various states that were devastated by natural disasters And
he's done it multiple times, let me give you examples.
In 2017, for instance, not that long ago,
2017 he voted against hurricane relief for Texas, Puerto Rico and Florida,
in 2019, he did it again, he voted against the disaster relief bill.
By the way, he criticized Chris Christie after Hurricane Sandy
because Chris Christie, who was the governor of New Jersey at the time,
desperately needed financial relief like relief funds.
In order to help with the disaster relief efforts to get people
in New Jersey back on their own two ft.
He said that Chris Christie is just like, give me, just mocking the governor who
is rightly calling on the federal government to do its job.
The role of the government is to protect the American people when we pay taxes.
I know this is a crazy thought, but just hear me out here.
When we pay our federal taxes, it's not supposed to just
simply go to corporate welfare or to endless defense spending.
The role of the government is supposed to be about protecting the American people,
that's it.
That is the core of what government is supposed to be.
So when Americans, when our fellow Americans,
regardless of their political ideology, regardless of what they believe,
are experiencing the devastation of natural disasters.
In many cases climate fueled natural disasters, it is absolutely the
responsibility and obligation of the federal government to step in period,
period. When I pay my taxes,
I'm not thinking to myself,
I can't wait to see my taxes fund more
private military contractors,
it's great. Now I want my tax money to help
my fellow Americans in their time of need. I want my tax money to create
opportunities for fellow Americans regardless of their religion,
regardless of their political beliefs, That's what this is supposed to be about.
That's what patriotism is.
But Rand Paul, on multiple occasions voted against
providing relief to our fellow Americans, that's who he is.
And I guess being in Senate has made him so
incredibly soft that the audacity to call him a hypocrite hasn't been a tizzy.
He's so defensive about it, but that's what he is, he's a hypocrite.
He's a goon who turns his back on the American people.
Unless ,it's his own state and his political career might depend
on urging the federal government to provide disaster relief funds.
And I do want to give you an example of what he has said on the Senate floor
after he voted against providing disaster relief funds, let's watch.
>> People here will say they have great compassion and they want to help
the people of Puerto Rico and the people of Texas and the people of Florida.
But notice they have great compassion with someone else's money.
Ask them if they're giving any money to Puerto Rico ,ask them if they're giving
money to Texas, ask them what they're doing to help their fellow man .And you'll
find often that it's easy to be compassionate with someone else's money.
>> Real easy for Rand Paul to show no compassion and then get real angry when
people actually look at his voting record and notice that he's a massive hypocrite.
Real easy, well, let him cry.
He deserves to be called out, and
he's not the only lawmaker we see it happen over and over again.
where the very people who are constantly screaming on the rooftops about
how we need austerity, then turn around and
vote in favor of corporate welfare, then turn around.
And vote in favor of providing $10 billion Bezos and
Elon musk for their cutesy little space hobbies.
They usually don't have a problem when it comes to that kind of spending.
But when it comes to stepping up on behalf of ordinary Americans, yeah,
there's a lot of hypocrites in Congress, and Rand Paul is just one of them.
So go ahead and cry, Rand Paul, you're a hypocrite, and
it's absolutely pathetic that he just lied on national television about how No,
I got a long history of being in favor of providing disaster relief funds.
Complete bs, absolute liar